The Nymph and the Lamp (17 page)

And now MacGillivray appeared, the operator who had “served his time.” He was dressed in a dark blue suit, evidently little worn during his service on Marina, and his young face, tanned to a dark leather by twelve months of wind and sunblaze on these barren sands, made a startling contrast with the clean white of his shirt and collar. He shook hands with Carney, ducked his head with an engaging grin at Isabel, and went off, shouting to the boat's crew as if in mortal fear of being left behind. Matthew smiled.

“Like a kid out of school. They're all like that, the young chaps, when they go. Natural, of course. It's something to be young.”

He helped Isabel into the buggy seat while Skane stowed and lashed their baggage behind. “I'll stay and check the stores,” Skane said. “There's still a lot to come. Vedder will have tea ready for you. I think you'll find everything shipshape.”

Matthew took up the reins and drove off along the beach, keeping just above the water where the sand was firm and smooth.

“Where is the road?” Isabel asked.

He chuckled. “There's no road on Marina. Oh, there's a sort of track amongst the dunes from Main Station to our place—a mile or so. But it's rough going. We use the beach all the time, except in high tides or storms. Notice the wheels—those wide iron tires. Keeps 'em from sticking in the sand. All the wagons on Marina have wheels like that.”

“I didn't think much of that man Skane.”

“He's all right.”

“What's the other operator like?”

“Sargent? I only saw him when he landed last spring. Just a kid, nineteen or so.”

“And who's Vedder?”

“The cook.”

Ahead of the ponies the dark ribbon of wet sand ran on for miles and was lost in the mirage to the east. On the right hand marched a rampart of dunes, a monotony of steep sands, bare on the seaward face, and topped with bunches of pallid green marram grass, waving in the breeze. Here and there a gully opened upon the beach as a lane opens upon a main thoroughfare, and there was a passing glimpse of other dunes whose slopes were covered with that shifting illusory green. On the left hand the North Atlantic stretched away to the horizon, a gleaming blue desert speckled with white where the swells began to break on the shoals.

Above the dunes appeared the topmost section of the radio mast, a white wand held upright by taut wire stays, like a naked umbrella raised to the cloudless sky. Slowly the umbrella grew taller. The mast was revealed as three long wooden spars fastened one upon another like the lower, top and topgallant masts of a ship. And now in each lull of the sea breeze Isabel could hear the pop-pop-pop of a gasoline engine and then the high bugle note of the radio spark in quick staccato bursts. At each of these Matthew threw up his head, listening, smiling a little, and translating the dots and dashes for her benefit. Young Sargent was talking to the
Lord Elgin,
a few commonplace phrases flung out into the void, and she wondered at the pleasure in Matthew's face, not realizing that this was for him the very voice of home.

When the mast drew abreast Matthew turned into a gully. The ponies, wiry, half-tamed beasts from the Main Station stables, dragged the buggy at their heels resignedly. The patter of their unshod hoofs sank to a whisper in the dry loose sand. In the hollow of the dunes there was no stir of sea air and the slopes threw off the sun's heat like the walls of an oven. In a minute the ponies shone with sweat. Isabel felt her cheeks burning. The sea had vanished and the murmur of the surf became faint and far. They passed under the island telephone line, a single wire carried over the dunes on a procession of staggering poles.

The gully came to an end and the buggy lurched over a steep dune and there, without warning, lay the wireless station; the tall white mast, which now seemed to touch the sky, a small store-shed and a rectangular bungalow of white clapboards, like a small wooden oasis in a desolation of sand and spire-grass. The island here was narrow, sloping towards the south, and at a distance of perhaps two hundred yards beyond the buildings Isabel saw an expanse of calm water screened from the northerly breeze by the dunes. The heaving face of the ocean lay beyond that, and between the two stretched a bar of sand and a white toss of surf. The sheltered water inside the bar went on towards the east, apparently for miles, disappearing in the haze.

“The lagoon,” Matthew said, with a flick of the whip. He pulled up the ponies outside a small porch at the end of the white building and helped Isabel down.

“My dear,” he cried, “we're home!”

CHAPTER 12

Isabel had a fear that he was about to sweep her up in his arms and carry her over the threshold, as he had carried her up the beach under the eyes of those staring women and that cynical man Skane; and she forestalled him by stepping quickly through the open doorway. She found herself in a narrow hall from which a series of doors opened right and left. A powder of fine sand lay along the floor. Matthew threw open the first door on the left and revealed a young man sitting in a chair facing the east window, with a pair of phones clasped on his head. Before him a long table ran across the east side of the room, and upon it stood the receiving apparatus, two varnished wooden boxes faced with ebonite and studded with knobs and dials. At his right hand lay the transmitting key with its thick brass shank and round black knob.

There was a black switchboard on the wall at his left with an imposing array of switches and voltmeters and ammeters. A small iron stove and three worn wooden chairs completed the furniture. The wooden floor was bare, and badly worn by heavy boots grinding the all-pervading sand underfoot, so that the knots in the boards stood out like wens. Along the painted wainscot a row of hooks dangled clips of message forms. The upper part of the walls was painted an unimaginative drab. There were two windows, one looking out towards the mast and the other facing north towards the invisible beach and the dunes over which the buggy had just come. It was a room devoid of beauty and of comfort, and to Isabel it reflected faithfully the sterile life of Matthew and the others in this place for all the years. She could scarcely repress a shudder.

The man at the phones sat in a rigid attitude, gazing through the window with alert far-staring eyes as if he could see across the void to the lurching, creaking radio cabin of the ship to which he was listening. But he had seen the buggy draw up at the door, and suddenly, as if satisfied for the moment with that mysterious whisper in the phones, he turned and sprang out of his chair, slipping off one of the earpieces and looking towards the newcomers. Isabel saw that he was very young and shy. He could not have been more than eighteen. He had an oval, rather girlish face, and under the tan a quick flush spread as he met Isabel's eyes. His hair, like Skane's, was badly in need of the scissors. It hung in a brown mop on his neck and across his forehead; but he was freshly shaved. He wore an old navy jersey of heavy wool and a pair of shapeless trousers that once had been part of a naval uniform, and there was a pair of battered leather slippers on his feet.

“Sargent,” Matthew said briskly, “I want you to meet my wife.” Sargent moved politely towards her, still listening with the other ear to the far-off voice in the air; and Isabel, noting the short length of the phone cord, stepped forward quickly and put out her hand. He shook it bashfully and their hands withdrew.

“Sargent, I'm the happiest man in the world,” Carney cried, “and you can see why. And it's going to be a lot better for us all, I tell you, with a woman about the place. Don't let us interrupt your work. I'm just showing Mrs. Carney her new home.” He took Isabel's arm and they moved out into the hall. He pointed down the hall. “It ends at a partition, as you see. My—our apartment's on the other side, with a separate entrance. That door on the left, beyond the watch room, is Sargent's bedroom, and the farther one is Skane's. The room on the right, opposite Skane's, is Vedder's—the cook, you know. Next is the operators' bathroom. This one here”—he threw open the door—“is the engine room, as you see.”

She peered inside obediently. The place reeked of hot oil. It had a concrete floor and in the midst of it a large single-cylinder gasoline engine whirled a pair of flywheels. From one of these a long slatting belt led her eye to the generator, spinning and whining at the farther end of the room. Along the wall stood a work bench equipped with vises and a scatter of tools, and above the generator there was an array of apparatus that she recognized as radio condensers and tuning coils. She had seen these things by the dozen in the storeroom at Halifax, items that she typed on long forms or mentioned in Hurd's business letters; and from time to time she had seen them sent off to ships or to distant parts of the coast. It was strange to see them in use, especially here in this small sea-desert where Carney of Marina had grown lonely and famous through the years. Outside she heard the steady thudding of the engine exhaust, and through a window she perceived several gasoline drums lying on the sandy slope at a safe distance from the building in case of fire.

Young Sargent, in that barren cell across the hall, began to talk in dots and dashes to the ship that had so engrossed his attention when the Carneys arrived. Isabel, standing on the greasy floor, was startled by a terrific sound as sharp, as deafening as rifle shots, and the little engine room was lit by a rapid succession of bright violet flashes that sprang, like the sound, from the revolving brass spark-studs at the end of the generator shaft. Involuntarily she shrank against Matthew's stalwart form and she was thankful for the arm clasping her in reassurance.

It was no wonder to her now that Matthew had been able to read the messages far down the beach. The sound was frightful, like an enormous and explosive brass trumpet. Electricity in large quantities had always seemed to her an uncomfortable if useful commodity; she had read in the newspapers of people killed by high-voltage wires about the streets; and she wondered how it was possible to stand in this hot little chamber, in the midst of these shattering manifestations, and remain alive. It was clear that Matthew and the others, grown careless with familiarity, were taking desperate chances every day of their lives. Casting dignity aside with Matthew's arm she fled into the hall and covered her ears with her hands. Matthew merely grinned.

“You'll get used to it,” he declared calmly. “There's a muffling drum that fits over the spark disc but we leave it off—we have to file the studs clean and adjust the gap every day, sometimes two or three times a day.”

“Do you mean to say,” she demanded in a voice that sounded thin and strange in her singing ears, “that it goes on like that, day and night?”

“Only when the chap on watch is transmitting.”

“But the transmitting goes on day and night—at intervals, I mean?”

“Oh yes. As I say, you'll get used to it.”

She did not reply. How could anyone sleep, even exist, with this erratic uproar shattering the silence of the station and of all the dunes within half a mile? And when she thought of days, weeks, months of it, she wondered how any of them kept from going mad. She was glad when Matthew led her outside and they passed along the plank walk to his own apartment at the east side.

As he opened the door she stepped inside with an air of skepticism, expecting the worst. After all, what could you expect of men living this barren life so far from civilization? The long ghastly hours of the voyage had given her an impression of enormous distance, as if she had come to the end of the world. With a quick feminine inquisitiveness she inspected the kitchen, the realm of the still unseen Vedder, a slovenly creature no doubt. What she saw was somewhat reassuring. The place was clean. The floor had been swept of sand and scrubbed. The boards gleamed bone-white in the sunshine through the uncurtained windows. The wainscoting was newly painted a dark shining brown, and the upper walls with white. A kitchen range stood against the partition wall. It had been freshly blackened and the kettles and pots on the neighboring shelves had been scrubbed to a dull sheen.

“Not many stations are laid out like this, with a separate apartment for the chief operator,” Matthew said with pride. “In most of 'em he has a room like the others and the kitchen is simply a living room for all hands. Of course, not being married, it didn't matter much to me—we've all hung about in here, when we were off watch. Vedder grumbles about having to step outdoors to get from the kitchen to his room.”

Isabel drew open a cupboard door and saw crockery of a plain indestructible sort ranged in neat rows along the shelves. Another cupboard held tinned food of various kinds and there were bins for flour and potatoes.

“Getting low,” he observed. “Always the case, by the time the boat arrives. But tomorrow the wagon will bring up our stores. I wonder where Vedder is?”

There was a coal fire in the stove and a kettle murmured and faintly steamed. On the table stood a teapot, two cups and saucers and a tin of milk with holes punched ready for pouring. Isabel peered into the pot and saw that the invisible cook had put tea in it ready for the hot water.

A worn sofa stood against the farther wall and there were four common wooden chairs of the sort to be found in every fisherman's kitchen. There was a tier of stout shelves, evidently made from ships' planking, holding a great number of worn books whose titles ranged from
Complete Works of Byron
to
Practical Wireless Telegraphy.
She noticed Guerber's
Myths of the Norsemen
and an English translation of the
Heimskringla;
and there were tins of tobacco, boxes of cartridges, playing cards, a pair of binoculars, a bottle of gun oil and other masculine bric-a-brac. A calendar on the back of the door advertised the wares of a marine cordage firm in Dartmouth. Above the kitchen table hung a snapshot of Carney mounted on one of the small island ponies. The frame was curiously contrived of wood cut out in the shape of a starfish, and covered with a glued surface of sand and small shells from the beach. A rusty single barreled shotgun, whose stock had been split and bound with copper wire, stood in one corner, and a double-barreled gun of more modern type gleamed with oil in another. The long bony bill of a swordfish, fitted whimsically with a carved wooden hilt and guard, hung over the stove like a monstrous cutlass.